{"id":11326,"date":"2011-05-03T14:21:32","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T21:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/momservations.wordpress.com\/?p=11326"},"modified":"2011-05-03T14:21:32","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T21:21:32","slug":"bin-ladens-last-act-of-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/momservations.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/03\/bin-ladens-last-act-of-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"Bin Laden’s Last Act of Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"

Momservation: <\/strong>It\u2019s a sad day when your children realize the world they live in can be a very scary place. Your hope is instead of frightening them it will inspire them to make it safer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u263a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u263a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u263a<\/p>\n

The morning after Osama Bin Laden <\/a>was finally brought to justice I woke my children to tell them the news.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It was worse than telling them there was no Santa Claus (which I haven\u2019t done yet).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because at ages 10 and 11 they vaguely knew about 9\/11 <\/a>and they certainly weren\u2019t aware there was a madman who made it his life\u2019s mission to destroy our country. They didn\u2019t know that full body scans at airports weren\u2019t always part of traveling. They didn\u2019t realize when Mommy\u2019s purse is checked at Disneyland<\/a> it\u2019s to make sure she doesn\u2019t have a bomb or poisonous liquids.<\/p>\n

And it was all by design. There was no reason, at their age, to burden them with the reality that the world can be a scary place and that the America they live in today has to always be ready for the next attack.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Whitney, 5 months, and Logan, 22 months, watching "Elmo's World" on 9\/11 just before I got the phone call to turn the channel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They were only five and 22 months old on 9\/11. I actually have\u00a0pictures of them I took that day because they looked so cute and innocent transfixed in front of the TV watching Elmo\u2019s World <\/a>\u2013 <\/em>the episode about bugs, my son\u2019s favorite. Then the phone rang. And I turned the channel just in time to see the north World Trade Center Tower collapse.<\/p>\n

Below is an excerpt from the journal entry I wrote a week later, so frightened for my children and the scary new world they would live in.<\/p>\n

As I tried to grasp the horror being played out in front of me\u2026I felt my life, my family\u2019s life, American lives change course. Forced onto a path that was dark and unlit without the light of hope. As a mother, how can you envision bright and hopeful opportunities for your children\u2019s future when you see a plane full of innocent people forced to end their lives by taking other unsuspecting souls with them? If there is such evil in the world to do this\u2026when will it come knocking on our door?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Taken 9\/11 watching the Bugs episode of "Elmo's World" before I knew about the terrorist attacks on America. A simply pure and sweet moment that was shattered.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I look back at one week ago, before September 11, 2001 was written in blood into our history books, and grasp for the comfort, peace, and opportunity of the United States I lived in. I weep for the innocence that was stolen from my children before they could even articulate what they wanted to be when they grew up. I am scared that I am old enough to know and understand what this new terroristic future will hold\u2026but most of all, I wish that one week ago I had instead seen the end of Elmo\u2019s World and that our world was still as innocent as I had seen reflected in my children\u2019s eyes.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, nearly ten years later, it was time to sit down my children and tell them the security they knew wasn\u2019t real. I knew that if I didn\u2019t educate my children about this significant moment in history \u2013 Bin Laden\u2019s death at the hands of U.S. soldiers <\/a>– they would learn about it the second they hit the school playground possibly in a much scarier way with misinformation and exaggerated details. If their perception of the world was going to change forever that day, I wanted to at least be there for them as the truth revealed itself and sank in.<\/p>\n

After I played President Obama\u2019s speech <\/a>for them and showed them a book about 9\/11 the questions came fast and furious:<\/p>\n

Were people on those planes and did they die?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Did people die when the Twin Towers collapsed?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Why would someone want to kill themselves or blow up innocent people?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What did the United States do to make that man want to do that?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What does Osama Bin Laden\u2019s family think about what he\u2019s done?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

My son, who is older and has an uncanny knack for compartmentalizing, seemed startled but\u00a0took this new information about his world in stride. But it was just as I feared with my philosophical daughter, Whitney. With trepidation she said, \u201cI\u2019m never going to feel the same about riding on a plane again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, after thinking more about it she added, \u201cI always felt like when bad things happened it wasn\u2019t real \u2013 it seemed more like a scary fairy tale in books I\u2019ve read. I used to think living in Sacramento was like living in a\u00a0fairy tale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her dawning realization of the world she lived in made my heart ache for her just as it did nearly 10 years earlier. It made me angry at Bin Laden all over again. The United States may have finally brought him to justice but the madman\u2019s final act of terror was to steal my daughter\u2019s innocence.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no way I\u2019m telling her about Santa now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The death of Osama Bin Laden forces Mom to tell the kids about a scary part of U.S. history. Includes journal excerpt from 9\/11 of a mother scared for her children’s future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[393,394,240,395,2,245,3,396,5,397,6,398,399],"class_list":["post-11326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting-2","tag-393","tag-death-of-osama-bin-laden","tag-disneyland","tag-elmos-world","tag-family","tag-kelli-m-wheeler","tag-kids","tag-loss-of-innocence","tag-momservations","tag-osama-bin-laden","tag-parenting","tag-president-obamas-speech-on-bin-laden-death","tag-telling-kids-bad-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBin Laden's Last Act of Terror - Kelli M. 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